Also in this discussion there has been a tendency to treat all non-mainstream poetry as if it were one, which of course it isn't - the differences between some types of non-mainstream poetries are far wider than their differences from the mainstream. We can easily forget how widespread a kind of new-age poetry was in the 90's (and still is to an extent, though its profile is much lower now - it is not a poetry which lends itself well to appropriation by the academies). Those poets were mostly completely ignored by the centre, and laughed at by some of the avants -(and notice I say 'some', please, take note of these little words!). There were a few poets on the fringe of that movement who did get taken up, Pauline Stainer (who Peter mentioned) was one of them. There were many excellent poets who got ignored by the centre at the time because what they did did not fit in with the expectations of 'the new poetry'. Elisabeth Bletsoe, Norman Jope, David Caddy, just three close to home names. I could list the kind of things which would 'get you in, and list the kinds of things which would probably keep you out, etc. But all of these things seem uncomfortable for people to talk about. Why?

For what its worth I think that an extended discussion that focussed on why the poetry of certain individuals (not the usual suspects from the avant and innovative circles) did not lend itself to the requirements of the British mainstream from 1982-2002 would be most beneficial. Then we could try to see if there has been a change since then.

I offer you a little list of names to get it going.....

Lee Harwood, Roy Fisher, Douglas Oliver, Peter Riley, Ric Caddel, Kelvin Corcoran, John James, Tom Leonard (Ooops, he was taken up), Colin Simms, Chris Torrance, Andrew Duncan, Jeremy Reed, Jay Ramsay, Norman Jope, Elisabeth Bletsoe, David Caddy, David Chaloner, Bill Griffiths, Paul Evans, Ken Smith (Ooops he was taken up too, to a degree), David Miller, Elaine Randell, Gavin Selerie......... I could go on couldn't I  

Tim A.
  
On 10 Sep 2010, at 01:01, Jamie McKendrick wrote:

Yes, you may be right here, but more as a difference in behaviour than in poetics?
 
As for noticing that there's another camp, the example of Lee Harwood's 
'Salt Water' is an excellent and relevant one: the subdued vibrancy of the 
writing, and the way it slowly curves round to the source of grief, and the 
elliptic Sapphic image at the end.
  There's a short Michael Longley poem also about the death of a child 
which uses the same image. I don't have the book to hand, but 'Morning Star'
I think is its title.
 Anyway I'm not mentioning it for purposes of comparison.
 
It would just seem a great shame that either one of these fine 
poems would be excluded from appreciation because of some a priori 
commitment to one or another camp. And actually, I don't think the approach 
to subject matter is significantly different, whichever of the two might be
prefered.

Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Mark Weiss
To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 9:40 PM
Subject: Re: "The Conspiracy Against Poems" by Adam Fieled at The Argotist Online

There's no question but that the boundary between the camps is blurry. But one way of defining the difference is that members of the mainstream rarely accept (or notice) that there's another camp, whereas most of the rest of us rarely forget it.